1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of networked media delivery systems, and more particularly, to a method and system for providing targeted advertisements to specific consumers.
2. Background of the Invention
Traditionally, the preferred method of advertising has been to broadcast an advertisement to a large audience via mass media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. This mass media advertising strategy seeks to reach the most number of viewers to increase the odds of contacting the ones most likely to purchase the advertised product or service. Although a large viewing audience may see the advertisement, advertisers understand that only a small percentage of that audience has a real interest in purchasing the advertised product or service. To some extent, advertisers can increase the probability of reaching purchasing consumers by creating advertisements that appeal to those potential consumers and broadcasting the advertisements in media that those same consumers are most likely to view. However, even using a popular medium to a typical potential consumer, advertisers will exclude potential consumers that do not use the medium and will include viewers of that medium who have no desire to purchase the product or service. Because of this underinclusion and overinclusion, advertisers necessarily waste at least a portion of their budgets on consumers who are not in the market to buy their product or service.
To offset this unnecessary spending, advertisers continually strive to narrow advertising efforts to a targeted purchasing audience. As briefly stated above, one targeting method distributes advertisements in media content that attract demographic groups likely to purchase the advertised product or service. For example, television shows often appeal to a particular type of audience, marked perhaps by age, income, or education. Usually, the specific sponsors of the shows sell products that appeal to the same particular audience. Similarly, in print media, advertisers choose magazines and newspapers with the content, style, and geographic coverage that attract readers likely to be interested in the advertised products or services.
In another targeting method, advertisers pay the mass media to deliver advertisements as a part of the media content. This method embeds the advertisement in the media content such that the viewer must view the advertisement to view the media content. For example, some radio and television programs incorporate advertising pitches into the program commentary or discussions. Other targeting techniques display advertisements concurrently with the media content, such as with corporate sponsored scoreboard icons in the corner of a television screen, or with logos incorporated into uniforms or equipment (e.g., race cars) that are repeatedly shown during a sports event broadcast. Another embedded advertising technique has film actors or actresses that use the advertiser""s products during their acting.
Although the targeting techniques described above focus on a smaller consumer audience, the overinclusion and underinclusion inherent in mass media advertising remain their principal drawbacks. In each targeting strategy, advertisers waste money by reaching people who are not interested in the product or service or by excluding those people who are interested. Because these techniques assess consumer interest on the larger scale of program audiences instead of on an individual viewer basis, the techniques will always suffer from the squandered advertising dollars associated with overinclusion and underinclusion.
To address the drawbacks to mass media, advertisers sometimes use direct mailings and niche print media to reach targeted consumer audiences. Direct mailings and niche magazines focus on specific potential purchasers or classes of purchasers. For example, a pharmaceutical company can use targeted mailings to deliver its advertising materials directly to doctors practicing the particular type of medicine to which the advertised drug applies. As another example, boat manufacturers can advertise in a small number of magazines directed to boating enthusiasts. While these targeted print advertisements increase the efficiency of advertising efforts, they lack the powerful and influential images and sounds that a medium such as television can deliver. Thus, targeted print advertisements have only limited application and impact.
Recognizing the drawbacks to mass media and targeted print advertisements, advertisers have turned to the internet to isolate potential consumers and increase the power of their advertising dollars. On the internet, a user controls the content she views by navigating the worldwide web and accessing web pages and web advertisements. Using software, advertisers can intelligently monitor these user viewing selections, analyze viewing patterns, and deliver advertisements suiting the tastes and interests of the user. For example, if a user has repeatedly chosen to view internet advertisements for camping equipment, the software will retrieve all camping equipment advertisements that subscribe to the advertising plan and deliver them to the user. In addition, the software can retrieve advertisements for related products, such as hiking gear, and display those advertisements to the user as well. U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,061 discloses a method of delivering, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks that is representative of these types of internet targeted advertisements.
Although these internet targeted advertisements marginally increase the spending power of the advertising dollar, they still present notable disadvantages. First, despite a growing popularity, the internet has far fewer users than traditional media such as newspapers or television. The cost of purchasing a computer and maintaining internet access will continue to exclude potential consumers. In addition, many consumers, especially those of older generations, are intimidated by the seemingly complex internet technology and prefer the more familiar medium of television.
In addition to limited consumer audiences, bandwidth restrictions limit data transmission speed and hamper the quality and impact of targeted internet advertisements. Most internet users are thoroughly familiar with the long delays associated with downloading graphical information, especially video clips or other animation. These delays limit the types of advertisements that can be displayed and dampen the impact an advertisement can have on a user. Often, the consumer clicks through the web page without viewing the advertisement or occupies the downloading time with other activities such as watching television or reading.
Targeted internet advertising also has limited data from which to determine a customer profile. To collect data, the targeted internet advertising systems simply record user selections of internet advertisements, note words typed when searching web content, or read user information such as geographic location, domain type (e.g., commercial, education or government), and perhaps standard industry codes (SICs), which indicate such user characteristics as employer and type of employer. To target the advertising, the internet systems tend to deliver advertisements, e.g., banner advertisements, related to a user""s previous advertisement selections or search terms without regard to the current and changing tastes of the user. In relying on previous advertisement selections or search terms, these internet systems miss the opportunity to display the types of advertisements that the user would be interested in, but has not yet seen or clicked through. Instead of being proactive and assessing a customer""s tastes and delivering new, pertinent advertisements, these internet systems simply react to previous advertisement selections and deliver related advertisements.
The present invention is a system and method for providing targeted advertisements over a networked media delivery system. Broadly stated, the present invention tracks and stores viewing events (e.g., such as menu choices or changes in programming), analyzes the events, and delivers targeted advertisements that appeal to the particular subscriber generating the events. By collecting data on viewing habits and analyzing that data in light of other subscriber account information (from other subscriber databases), the present invention is able to intelligently select and display advertisements that offer products or services a viewer is truly interested in purchasing. Further, the present invention can deliver different advertisements to different viewers watching the same program or channel. Thus, the present invention reaches a large audience (e.g., a cable television audience), assesses the interests and tastes of each subscriber of that audience, and delivers advertisements to each subscriber for products or services that the subscriber is predisposed to purchase. The net result is a more efficiently spent advertising dollar for the sponsors and an increased profit margin for the network media providers.
As part of the present invention, the tracking and storing of event data is accomplished by use of a system for tracking network use, such as the Clickstream system of BellSouth Interactive Media Services. That network use tracking system is described in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/779,306, entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and System for Tracking Network Use,xe2x80x9d by Batten, Grauch, Danner, Stefanik, and Swix, filed Jan. 6, 1997, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention. As part of the present invention, event data gathered by a network use tracking system can include such viewing events as a channel viewed, a switch to another channel, use of a VCR or other ancillary device, or invocation of an interactive application and subscriber commands given to the system during the application. For identification and tracking, event data also includes a time stamp (to indicate, e.g., start and stop times) and the subscriber""s set-top box identification.
The primary components of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, include a merge processor 100, a file server 102, a profile processor 104, and a broadcast server 105, connected to a plurality of set-top boxes 108. Together, these components record network use by individual subscribers, store and organize data associated with the network use, analyze the data to identify interests of an individual subscriber, classify the individual subscriber in a demographic group, and deliver an advertisement targeted for her demographic group to the individual subscriber. Merge processor 100, file server 102, and broadcast server 105 reside in a head end 110, typically operated by a media service provider, and are connected to a plurality of set-top boxes 108 through a distributed media delivery network 106, such as a satellite, cable, or fiberoptic network. Profile processor 104 also resides in head end 110 and is connected to merge processor 100 and file server 102.
A set-top box is a network media device comprising a microprocessor, a memory buffer for operating instructions and storage, and a control interface for receiving subscriber viewing commands from a remote control device or control panel. In addition to the term xe2x80x9cset-top box,xe2x80x9d such a network media device is sometimes referred to as a set-top terminal, a cable converter, or a home communications terminal. One or more of these terms apply generally to devices that are coupled to or made a part of a display device that shows programming to a subscriber. In addition, as used in this specification and in the claims, the term xe2x80x9cset-top boxxe2x80x9d also includes a personal computer or any other computational device that communicates with a media delivery network and performs the functions described herein. When it is connected to a viewing device, e.g., a television set at a subscriber premises, the set-top box responds to and records the viewing selections (xe2x80x9cevent dataxe2x80x9d) of a subscriber. At predetermined intervals, the set-top box uploads this event data through the distributed network to the merge processor.
Merge processor 100 communicates with the plurality of set-top boxes through the distribution network. Merge processor 100 receives the event data from the set-top boxes, organizes the data, and stores the data in event lists arranged by subscriber account.
File server 102 stores display data to be delivered to the plurality of set-top boxes in response to a subscriber selection. For example, file server 102 can contain digital copies of pay-per-view movies or commercials. The display data can be in the form of text, graphic elements, bit maps, or video stream. Graphic elements are simple display images such as rectangles, lines, or circles. Bit maps define a display space, e.g., a still frame or picture, and define a color for each pixel or xe2x80x9cbitxe2x80x9d in the display space. Examples of graphic image file types that contain bit maps include GIF and JPEG files. Video streams are a series of frames or pictures that produce moving images or animation. Alternately, the display data could be a multimedia presentation, e.g., a Shockwave(trademark), Flash(trademark), or Java(trademark) presentation.
In addition to storing and delivering display data, file server 102 also communicates with the plurality of set-top boxes, performing such functions as assigning each set-top box to a demographic group and directing each set-top box to tune to particular channels.
In contrast to the interactive sessions of file server 102, broadcast server 105 delivers a continuous stream of display data within a broadcast environment. Broadcast server 105 delivers multiple video streams on separate channels and, unlike file server 102, does not participate in dynamic interchange with the set-top boxes. Instead, the set-top boxes tune to the particular channels that contain programming corresponding to their individual demographic groups.
Profile processor 104 receives event data from merge processor 100 and additional data from several other sources to construct a consumer profile of a subscriber. In constructing a profile, profile processor 104 analyzes the data to identify a subscriber""s viewing habits and corresponding interests. In addition to merge processor 100, the other data sources preferably include an interactive selection list from an interactive television database 120, subscriber data from a customer registration database 122, billing data from an accounting database 124, and perhaps questionnaire data from a survey database 126 that stores customers"" specific responses to questions about their interests. Profile processor 104 uses an algorithm to systematically examine customer profile information, to determine the particular demographic group of the viewer, and to choose an advertisement that appeals to the interests of the viewer and the demographic group. Once the analysis is complete, profile processor 104 instructs file server 102 to deliver a particular advertisement to the set-top box of the viewer. Profile processor 104 performs data source analyses and issues instructions concurrently among multiple viewers so that multiple viewers watching the same show can receive different advertisements.
As is apparent to those skilled in the art, the present invention may be used with numerous types of networked media delivery systems. For example, the method or system of the present invention could be deployed on an interactive media delivery system or modified for use with a conventional cable television network, a wireless cable television network, or a home satellite television network.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for delivering targeted advertisements to the types of consumers most likely to purchase the advertised product or service.
It is another object of the present invention to provide targeted advertising that reaches a large audience, that monitors and assesses each viewer of that audience to determine purchasing interests, and that displays advertisements to each viewer corresponding to her purchasing interests.
It is another object of the present invention to use an easily accessible medium to deliver targeted advertisements to the consumers most likely to purchase the advertised product.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a targeted advertising system and method that displays both bit map and video stream advertising.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a means for displaying different commercials to individual viewers watching the same channel.
These and other objects of the present invention are described in greater detail in the detailed description of the invention, the appended drawings, and the attached claims. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description that follows, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practicing the invention.